"...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like the fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."
- Jack Kerouac
Eleven years after the death of an 18-year-old boy led to the suspension of some trials and close scrutiny by regulators, Bloomberg Business Week will report in its April 26 issue that gene therapy is experiencing a revival among scientists and drugmakers led by Genzyme and Pfizer Inc. in the U.S. and Novartis AG in Europe.
HudsonAlpha Cell | HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology
Topic: Miscellaneous
10:36 pm EDT, Apr 7, 2010
Some things are very difficult to visualize from the flat pages of a book. Among them is one of life’s basic building blocks: the cell.
“We know from discussions with educators across the state that the leading science concepts students struggle with are cells and the differences between different types of cells,” said Dr. Neil Lamb, director of educational outreach for the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.
In response, Lamb and his team have introduced HudsonAlpha Cell. Using techniques found in video gaming, Web-based HudsonAlpha Cell allows viewers to interact with plant, animal and bacteria cells by double clicking to zoom, clicking and dragging to rotate, and performing a simple mouse over for annotations.
Mayor's task force to tout city's bid for Google Fiber - al.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
5:44 pm EDT, Mar 16, 2010
Huntsville's bid for Google's ultra-high-speed broadband network just got a little more serious.
On Monday, Mayor Tommy Battle announced the creation of a Get Google task force to help tout the Rocket City as the perfect test market for Google Fiber. The group includes state lawmakers, university leaders, biotechnology experts and computer gurus.
Going through some old papers the other night made me realize a couple of things.
1. I am a nerd. I know...I know...this one was pretty obvious - but seriously...you should see all of the old magazine and newspaper clippings I have kept over the years because something extremely nerdy was "cool" to me. As if I have time to actually go through it all in detail again - ha!:)
2. I am in a scientific silo at the moment, but consciously trying to bust out. When I started grad school, all the older students would talk about this "silo" - yes, I am talking about the things that store grain - and how as you get deeper into grad school, you would enter this silo state, where you were really unable to pay attention to science outside your field for a variety of reasons. I thought this would not happen to me, but I realize it has. I miss the outside of the silo.
3. I miss the media frenzy over the human genome project. It was just so fun back in the early 2000s. The articles I saved were so inspiring - everyone thought that it would change the world instantly to know the code. Some interesting stuff has come out of the completion of the HGP, and I think a lot more is forthcoming (in the next decade hopefully). But the mainstream media has forgotten for the time being.
4. We need more biopunk authors! Perhaps I should try this as a side venture? Writing scifi with a bio inspired edge?
Anyway, I love looking over things I saved from a long time ago - I can't wait to look back on these clippings 50 years from now and see how things have and have not changed.
